Merry Christmas to those who celebrate.
Caveat One: My personal views are probably somewhat closer to Bernie on most issues.
Caveat Two: In spite of that, I plan on voting for Hillary in the Michigan primary unless there’s some dramatic turn of events (new scandal, etc) between now and then.
Caveat Three: IF Bernie manages to pull off the nomination, I will not only vote for him in the general, I’ll donate as much as I can and will do everything else within my means to elect him President.
HAVING SAID ALL OF THAT:
Last night my family spent Christmas Eve with some friends who have several kids. The oldest is a college freshman who’s home for the holidays. I ended up having a good, long conversation with him about all sorts of stuff, including politics and the election.
He’s a smart kid and very polite, who’s also a big supporter of Bernie Sanders. It’s also worth noting, given the supposed huge gap in demographic support between Hillary and Bernie with minorities, that he’s also African-American.
Anyway, he said that he supports Bernie mainly because of his calls for tuition-free public college and single-payer healthcare. He also feels that Hillary is “too close to Wall Street” and has too itchy a trigger finger when it comes to military action overseas. Nothing unusual here.
HOWEVER...there were three other things which came up which, if he’s representative of a large portion of Bernie Sanders supporters, cause me to think that Sen. Sanders isn’t likely to perform as well in the actual primaries/caucuses as his huge rallies would indicate:
First: Not only did he not know when the Michigan primary was, he didn’t even know what a primary was. That is, he asked me with all sincerity “How do they actually figure out which one of them is gonna be the Democrat running next November?”
I gave a general explanation of how the primary process works, let him know that the Michigan primary will be in March (March 8th, to be precise).
Second: He isn’t registered to vote yet (he’s 19), and had no idea how to get registered. I told him to visit the MI SoS website and download the voter registration form.
Third: He seemed to be under the impression that if Bernie does get elected President, he’ll somehow cause tuition-free public college and single payer to magically come into existence on his own. The fact that taxes would have to be increased in order to pay for either/both of these (or, alternately, a huge reallocation of funding from the military budget, etc.) didn’t seem to come into the equation (note: I say this as a strong single payer advocate myself). The realities of control of the U.S. Senate and House, along with the incredible amount of opposition to both plans which would be unleashed from not only the ultra-rich (who would presumably be the ones most taxed) as well as the pharmaceutical industry, the insurance industry and so forth wasn’t on his mind.
I also noted that even if every one of Bernie’s plans were come to fruition, it likely wouldn’t happen until he, personally, had already graduated from college anyway...which, again, he hadn’t really thought about much.
Again, he’s a bright kid, he’s just new to all of this nonsense and simply hasn’t given most aspects of the campaign that much thought yet.
To be clear, I did not try to convince him to vote for Hillary; after all, she’d face the same problems in terms of the Senate and House (there’s a good chance of the Dems retaking the Senate by a slim margin, but the House is very likely out of reach). I have absolutely no opposition to anyone who votes for Bernie in the primary, and again, if he manages to pull out the nom, I’ll support him 100%.
The only thing that I ask of Bernie supporters (and which I ask of Hillary supporters if Bernie does get the nomination) is to vote for the Democratic nominee no matter what...as well as solid D’s up and down the ballot.
Fortunately, that’s one thing which he absolutely agreed with me on.
UPDATE: Been out & about for awhile; I see this one’s on the Rec list, thanks!
OK, to address some stuff in the comments:
1. To those who think I’m lying about having views closer to Bernie’s but still supporting Hillary: You haven’t the slightest clue what you’re talking about, and represent a completely different reason why I suspect Bernie will underperform in the end.
2. To those asking why I’m supporting Hillary even though my views are closer to Bernie’s: onislandtime in the comments actually did a nice job of answering this:
“If I were hiring an inspirational speaker, I'd hire Bernie. I'm hiring an executive who will have to work in a hostile environment, so I am hiring Hillary. “
As I noted above, Hillary in the WH would face just as much opposition as Bernie. Even if the Dems retake the Senate, it’d likely be by a narrow margin, and the House is almost certainly out of reach for either of them.
So then the question is, which one is more likely to manage to get something positive through a hostile Congress? As much as they may hate Hillary, she also knows how to slug it out. She knows, to put it bluntly, where all the bodies are (figuratively) buried, which levers of power to push/pull...all that inside baseball, corridors-of-power sausage-making crap that everyone hates but which is inevitable. I guess you’d call this the “3:00am phone call” argument (and I say that as someone who strongly supported Obama over Hillary in the 2008 primary, although I originally liked Bill Richardson and admittedly had a brief flirtation with Edwards for a few weeks beforehand).
So, what about Bernie? Well, as I noted in my #DemDebate writeup, when it comes to healthcare (which should be a very strong issue for both of them), both Bernie and Hillary were actually a bit disappointing for different reasons (read the piece for details).
Anyway, in 2004 I was a huge Howard Dean supporter; that was my “#FeelTheBern” moment, just as it was Obama for many in 2008 and Bernie for many this year. However, for myself, I just think Hillary, with all her flaws, is the better choice this particular cycle.
3. To those who accuse me of conflating “ignorance of the process” from a single Bernie supporter with “ignorance of the process” among young people, the reason I conflate the two is that it’s the youth vote who Bernie is supposedly relying heavily on. On the other hand, I also noted that this young man is African-American, which is supposedly not one of Bernie’s core constituencies, so I could be wrong...but he did indicate that “a lot” of his fellow freshmen are rooting for Bernie for the same reasons (“free college!” etc), so I think it’s safe to assume that he’s representative of at least a decent portion of Sanders supporters.
4. Finally, one commenter claimed that it was my “responsibility” as his “elder” to inform him of how the system works/etc without being “condescending”. This is amusing, since a) I did inform the kid about the process stuff without doing so in a condescending manner, and b) This wasn’t a political science lecture, it was a fun get-together with friends during a Christmas party. I wasn’t gonna go on a 4-hour diatribe about the intricacies of the political process; I probably went a bit too deep into the weeds as it was.
UPDATE x2: As a follow-up to #3 above: Several people have said that they’re “embarrassed for me” or similar because I’m using a single example to generalize about “all” Sanders supporters. I’m doing nothing of the sort. I’m saying that 1) a large portion of Sanders support does come from the millennial crowd and 2) I was speculating that this guy might be typical. I never said that he is, and if he isn’t, then Sanders supporters have nothing to worry about.
That said, here’s a Tweet I received the other day in response to my noting that Sanders hasn’t presented an actual plan to achieve Single Payer:
Again, I’m not saying that this is typical of ALL Sanders supporters, and there are no doubt many Hillary supporters who are equally naive about how the government works. I’m just saying that I’ve seen quite a few examples of this sort of mindset lately, and of the ones I’ve encountered, every one has been from someone supporting Sanders.
However, to clarify for the record: THIS IS INDEED A SINGLE ANECDOTE ABOUT A SINGLE PERSON (or two, if you include the tweet above). I’m not trying to besmirch or belittle Sanders or his supporters. I’ve even emphasized the “IF” in the title, OK?
UPDATE x3: If you go through the 500+ comments, in addition to the dozen or so people who are ripping me apart for suggesting that this single anecdote about a single 19-year old is representative, you’ll also see another dozen or so comments giving similar anecdotes. Again, I agree that all of these are individual anecdotes and that there’s no way of proving what percent of Sanders supporters these examples represent...but it’s certainly far more than one kid.
As for those who asked about my following up with the 19-year old: Yes, of course I will. I was a guest at someone else’s home for a lighthearted Christmas party at the time; I wasn’t exactly in a position to whip out a voter registration form and have him fill it out on the spot (and no, I don’t happen to carry a stack of them wherever I go). However, he’s home for another couple of weeks so yes, I do plan on following up with him to make sure he got registered, knows where his precinct is and so on.
Also, as several people have noted, the larger point here is that if you’re going to rely on the youth vote, you better make damned sure to educate those youth about not just why you want them to support your candidate, but also how the political process works AND especially the mechanics of getting registered to vote, the voting process, the primary/caucus system and so forth.
UPDATE x4: I’ve updated the title to be less incendiary and more reflective of the larger point I’m trying to make.
In addition, as noted in my last update, here’s several examples from others in the comments which make it clear that the problem is not limited to a single kid:
“I’ve been following Bernie for years, so of course am a deeply avid supporter. But I’m concerned. Many of the kids don’t understand Primaries; they don’t know if their state is open or closed- therefore whether they need to change affiliations- and worst of all, many states require registration 30 days or more in advance of voting. Most Clinton supporter diaries are little more than, ‘he can't win.’ But I think you’re bringing up a genuine concern, here… becuz the various states rules are confusing even if you’re old school.”
“Yeah, I often have a feeling that those of us posting on this blog have no idea how little most people, and especially most young people, think much or know much about the basics of the political process. We here are not representative at all.”
“He’s a representative of the new voters that lean to Sanders. Most of which are going to need to learn how the process works.”
“My grandson is also a Bernie supporter. He is 21 years old, has never voted, and like the young Bernie supporter being discussed, does not have a clue about the political process. I would be amazed if he manages to even vote in the primary. “
“Excellent points, says this strong Bernie supporter. I’ve been trying to talk up the need for people here to help Dem-leaning voters of their acquaintance 1) understand what a primary is and why party registration matters in closed-primary states, 2) find out whether their state has open or closed primaries, and 3) make sure people are able to vote the candidate of their choice in a Dem primary.”
“I have a similar anecdote to share. A Facebook friend is a very animated Bernie supporter who posts nothing but negative Hillary articles. I asked her how Bernie was going to work with the obstruction from Congress. She answered “What does Congress have to do with anything!!!” She believes that Bernie Sanders will accomplish magic if he becomes president. If Bernie Sanders can get free college, single payer, Wall Street reform etc. without compromise and politics then he is the Messiah we’ve been waiting for.”
“I had posted it before, but the young woman who cut my hair said she would vote for Bernie. So, i asked her if she was registered yet. No. I told her how. Then i asked if she knew when the state primary was. She said….Primary? So i told her. Then i told her about how neither Dem. candidates will be able to get much done for the lst 2 years and asked her to Please remember to vote in the Mid-Terms….and she said….you guessed it…..Mid-Terms?”
“I am a millennial and all of the Bernie friends I know are like this: they known nothing about the process and they don't even know about the policies - he's just going to go to Washington and make stuff happen. It is painful.”
“I saw some of that during the 2008 campaign—lots of enthusiasm for both candidates, but unrealistic expectations from young people about what a president can really accomplish by him/herself, and confusion over the voter registration process (some came on election day in November expecting to vote, and were surprised to find out they had to register ahead of time).”
“more than one anecdote = data. And it is a common theme among young voters (and many older ones as well) that people get excited by ideology without understanding the system, and obstacles to that ideology. That is something that HRC is very, very clear about.”
“Sanders supporters skew younger. Younger people are less knowledgable about how to register, etc. It is one thing that prevents them from voting in greater numbers.”
“I also want to echo — run in to a couple young Sanders supporters —
Me: “Are you registered to vote as a Democrat?”
Them: “I’m registered. What do you mean?” Me: “To participate in the caucus you have to be registered as a Democrat”
Them: “That’s not fair.”
Me: “Just go down and change it so you can participate and support Bernie”
Them: “What do I have to do?” Me: “Go to the designated place (ask where they live and tell them likely location)”
Them: “How long does it take”
Me: “About 1-2 hours depending on turnout”
Them: Blank stare
So the idea that Bernie is winning caucus states… I’m not sure about that.”
